Twitter begins advertising in user timelines

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Twitter, who until recently has always gone against the usual banner ads that purvey the rest of the social networks, has begun allowing promoted tweets to be placed in users individual streams.

The move comes after Twitter decided, earlier in the year, to allow advertising in its search and Trends column. This, however, may well make for a far more intrusive scenario with companies such as Red Bull, Starbucks and Virgin all set to use keywords in order to target twitterers.

This will no doubt be the catalyst for a huge revenue boost for Twitter, and its owners clearly believe that the service is well-founded enough to begin such a scheme, as use is so ubiquitous throughout the online community it's doubtful people will be too turned off. Expect grumbles and moans to be tweeted, whereby business will carry on as normal.

Initially, however, this will not affect regular users as the service will be trialled on Twitter's partner Hootsuit.com - possibly showing a degree of caution by the company.

Will advertising on Twitter put you off the service? Let us know in the comments below.